


"i believe in a universe that doesn't care -

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Feelings, Gen, Guilt, One Shot, Recovery, Talking, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 11:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16196819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: - and people who do."Aqua's got some promises to keep, and Sora's there to help out with that - and maybe to help her deal with her feelings, too.





	"i believe in a universe that doesn't care -

**Author's Note:**

> Set (presumably) mid KH3-ish, with references to some of what we've seen in the trailer. I am (likely) entirely wrong about how all of this will go down. Oh Well.

“Oh – !”

The exclamation came from above Aqua, filled with surprise, and she tilted her head back from where she’d huddled herself away in the shadows by the tower’s front steps to see Sora blinking down at her from the railing.

There was so much of Ven she could see in that inquisitive look of his, but that wasn’t fair to anyone to be thinking, so she smiled to hide the sting and gestured to the grass beside her; in welcome, so he wouldn’t think she had been hiding so much as catching a moment of quiet (though hiding was, very much, what she had been doing).

Sora flipped over the railing and landed next to her lightly in a move that was, to her eyes, more ‘her’ than ‘Ven,’ and she felt herself relax a little more – every time she saw further proof they weren’t one and the same, that there was nothing of Vanitas in the smiles of the boy before her, was reassuring.

“Uh, hey, Aqua,” Sora said. “Master Aqua? Er, ma’am?”

Amused, Aqua let out a small laugh. “Just Aqua is fine,” she said. “I don’t much stand on formality, these days.” And besides, titled or not, she was far from a Master.

“That’s not true!” Sora’s protest cut through her thoughts, and she blinked, because she hadn’t realised she’d said that aloud – in the Realm of Darkness, she’d fallen into the habit of keeping up a running commentary of her thoughts, just to keep the darker ones and the crushing silence at bay, but she thought she’d gotten a handle on that since being rescued. Embarrassed, she let out a shaky laugh, and looked away. “Well,” she said. “Maybe I passed my exam, but after I was named Master, I spent over a decade doing nothing while the worlds were falling, and the light in danger – all because I selfishly chose what my heart wanted over what was best for the worlds; what was my duty.”

For a long moment, Sora was silent, and Aqua curled in on herself, certain he was about to agree with her.

“You know,” Sora said thoughtfully, “Since you’re the one that Kairi inherited her Keyblade from, I thought you’d be like her, but really…you remind me a lot more of Riku.”

Aqua blinked. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. “What?”

A soft, shy grin that _almost_ succeeded in hiding the sadness it carried, and Sora slid down the wall of the tower, so that he was sitting cross-legged beside her on the grass.

“He does that too – Riku, I mean.” He looked away from her, in a way that felt conciliatory, like he knew that whatever he was about to say, she would react in a way she’d prefer no one else to see. “Blames himself for things that aren’t his fault.”

Hot shame flooded Aqua, mixed with embarrassment and a rage that Sora could presume to know – know her feelings, know the depth of what she was guilty for…and then tell her that she was wrong.

“It was my fault,” she said, and looked down at her hands, clenched into fists in her lap. “It _is_ my fault. Even though…” She faltered, and swallowed before continuing. “Even though I knew that Terra’s heart was gone – or, at least, that his heart was no longer the one in control – I chose to send him back into the realm of light. Everything Xehanort has done, has been because I looked at him and still saw my friend, instead of doing my duty as a Keyblade Master. We’re meant to be neutral – keep balance, protect the worlds – but because I couldn’t let go of Terra, the worlds fell to darkness, and children had to pick up the slack. _My_ slack.”

For a long moment, Sora was silent, and Aqua contented herself with the stillness, not looking away from her hands; fingers bone white with the tension they were filled with.

“That’s not your fault either, Aqua,” he said, finally, voice low. “Xehanort…his plan goes beyond whatever actually happened with you guys.”

“I _know_ that – ”

“Well, you’re not acting like you do.” He shifted, so he was looking directly at her, and Aqua resisted the urge to squirm and look away. “The Keyblade was meant for Riku, but it came to me because he’d fallen to the darkness. The darkness that had come because _Riku_ opened the door – not because you’d failed in your duty as a Keyblade Master. What happened to Destiny Islands, to us…it still would have happened.” His hand came up to press against his chest, where his heart beat beside so many others. “And Terra gave Riku the Keyblade, and Ventus…” he closed his eyes. “Ventus is right here with me, like he has been for so long.” His gaze locked with hers. “Aqua, we’ve been involved in this for just as long as you have, and you can’t pile all the blame on yourself.”

_I wouldn’t wish our lives on those children,_ Aqua had thought, twelve years ago – nearly thirteen, now, actually. “Maybe I don’t bear the guilt,” she said. “But the responsibility – ”

“Belongs to anyone who would take it up.” Sora’s voice was firm, and Aqua fell silent – maybe he hadn’t officially shown the Mark, just yet, but there had been undeniable shades of a Master in his tone, and Aqua felt a pang of deep longing for Master Eraqus. “This is something that affects all of the worlds – each and every single one of them, and everyone who lives in them. Aqua – ” He leant forward and grabbed her hands in his – gently uncurling her fingers from where she’d dug them into her palms and _holding_ them. “This isn’t just on you, not anymore. You don’t have to fight alone.”

Her throat felt tight, and her vision swam. A decade of darkness and no one by her side, and now this child of light was telling her she wasn’t alone. She bit out a laugh, bitter and tinged with hysteria.

“I don’t know how _not_ to fight alone,” she confessed. “I’ve forgotten what it feels like, to be part of a team. To have someone at your back, and trust them to help you carry the weight.” She’d been too cautious with Ventus, as much as she’d trusted him with her life – she’d never let him place himself at risk, if she could help it. And Terra…they’d been wonderful together, she knew, but then she’d shown the Mark and he hadn’t and over ten years had passed and that wound was still fresh in her heart, still bleeding out with each beat.

“Then, you’ll just have to relearn.” He smiled at her, bright and blinding, like it was actually that simple. “Aqua – come with me. Fight with me. We can learn together.” His smile shifted into something sheepish, rueful. “I’m so used to it being me, Donald and Goofy that I can be bad about adjusting to other people. Riku and I got into a rhythm pretty quickly, but Kairi and I are still struggling, and…and let’s not even mention Lea, okay?”

Startled, Aqua laughed, though it was weak and admittedly, slightly watery. “And where is it you’re going, Sora?”

One hand fell away from hers, to tap at his chest, and his expression shifted into something slightly more serious. “To Castle Oblivion,” he said. “I think, now that you’re here…it’s time to wake up Ventus.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

Castle Oblivion – an ugly name for a once beautiful place; the fortress of obscurity she’d turned her once home into. Was that name all Sora knew the land by? Did he know that it had once been called the Land of Departure – a sacred place of balance; a neutral ground guarded by Keyblade Masters for eons?

Yen Sid might have told him. Since starting his training in earnest, he might have read it in a book. But – even if he knew, he’d never spent a moment training in the grounds that she had, never stood in those halls and _felt_ the history of the Keyblade that filled them.

He only _knew_ Castle Oblivion. And, for a moment, that thought filled Aqua with a poignant type of sadness she couldn’t quite pin a name to – that of the newest generation of Keyblade wielders had experienced nothing of the traditions she had, and were stumbling into their duties as blind as she sometimes felt she was, since coming back from the Realm of Darkness and the misery that ate at her.

She closed her eyes – closed her mind, just for a second, to the memories that brought pain and the sorrow that threatened to choke her. “There is nothing I want more, in any world,” she said. “Then waking Ven up. But to get to him, we’d have to undo the lock that made Castle Oblivion into Castle Oblivion in the first place. And it can’t be done with just any Keyblade, or by the hand of any wielder. It has to be – ”

“It has to be the Master marked as the Warden of the Land.” Sora nodded. “And it has to be done with, uh – the Master’s Keeper? Is that right?”

“It’s also been called the Master’s Defender, but yes, that’s right,” Aqua said automatically, as her mind floundered a bit in shock. “Sora, how – ?”

A flash of light, the soft _shing_ of a Keyblade being summoned, and a blade she hadn’t seen since it had been lost when the Destiny Islands moved back into the Realm of Light while she fell deeper into the darkness was held at the ready in Sora’s hands.

“I – ” A flash of Master Eraqus, smiling as he gently chided her and pushed her curious hands away from his Keyblade, telling her she’d get her chance to hold it when the time was right. Lessons, spent in lazy sun, nudging Terra to stay focused, as he told them the history of his Keyblade, of how it was granted to the Warden of the Land of Departure, meant to guard and protect the balance of the worlds. That final, terrible night, taking up the Keyblade that was hers now by right but would always be ‘the Master’s blade’ in her mind, and doing her duty as Warden – locking away her home and locking away Ven with it.

Her cheeks felt hot. Hot and wet.

She scrubbed at her face, eyes open but blind, as Sora dismissed the Keyblade and looked at her with eyes filled with concern. “Aqua, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was thick, choked up, but Sora thankfully didn’t push the subject any further. “Where did you get that Keyblade?”

That blade was meant for Masters only. Specifically, it was meant for the Warden of the Land of Departure alone to wield, and no one else. Sora couldn’t have summoned it to him from a keychain, and it wasn’t one he could have forged from his own heart – so, the only way he could be holding Master’s Keeper was if he had physically found it and picked it up.

“It was washed up on the beach at the play island,” he said, and Aqua sucked in a breath. In the end, it seemed everything went back to that tiny world – just a cluster of islands, and for the life of her she could not figure out what it was that made that place so important, or what made it produce such important, extraordinary people. It must be something in the water, she supposed. “I figured a Keyblade isn’t just something you generally find lying around, so I brought it here, to see if Yen Sid knew what to do with it, and he told me what it does. Here.” He resummoned the blade with a flick of his wrist, and held it out to her. Cautiously, she reached out, and felt the spark in the back of her mind as her hand brushed along steel and chrome that she hadn’t felt in years.

_Belonging_ , Master’s Keeper whispered; _home_ , and she shuddered a breath through her teeth to hold back more tears as she let the blade dissolve into motes of light. In her mind, metal shifted, Master’s Keeper taking its rightful place of pride among the Keyblades she called her own.

“Thank you,” she said, and Sora smiled.

“It’s nothing,” he said easily, even as they both knew that, to Aqua, it was anything but. This was Ven, safe and sound. This was her home, restored.

This was Xehanort, granted access to neutral ground he could easily abuse, whispered something dark and sibilant in the furthest recesses of her mind, and she firmly squashed that hiss down until it died. Ven had waited long enough – no more, no longer. Though she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe _all_ of his words, Sora was right in that whatever they did now, Xehanort was running his own game, and _not_ doing something just because they were scared that he might take advantage of it was an exercise in futility – living like that, they’d never get _anything_ done.

“Well,” Sora said, as she slowly stood, and offered down a hand to him with a smile – one of her first real smiles in a while, it felt like. “Looks like we have all we need to wake Ventus, right? The key to unlocking Castle Oblivion, and a Master to unlock his heart from mine.” Sora’s grin was sharp, like a ray of sun cutting through the perpetual twilight of Master Yen Sid’s pocket realm. “You and me, Aqua. We can share the burden together.”

Aqua took in a breath – a deep one. She held it in, and then…she let it go.

“Together,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a Sora and _Terra_ fic, but the starting point felt clunky and I realised I needed to elaborate a bit more about what was going on in my head. That fic is still happening, and will take place within this continuity - which is, a small series of fics dealing with the BBS trio coming to terms and healing, with a little help from the next generation. Sora will be central to most of these, in some way, but a Riku  & Aqua and a Kairi & Ven fic are also planned.
> 
> <3
> 
> (Title quote comes from Night In The Woods)


End file.
